Cat Tales
February 2005
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Cat Tales |
February 2005 |
 View from the Bridge |
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Al Lohman, Commodore The bad news is that the prognosticating mammal up in Pauxatawny saw its shadow so we’ve got 6 more weeks of winter. The good news is that Ground Hog Day was 3 week ago, so we’ve only got 3 weeks left. Now if the weather would only get nice for a few days I might actually be able to get some things checked off of my “To Do” list on the boat. No more football on TV, so I’m itching to do something with my weekends. And before you ask, no, I don’t watch NASCAR. I’m a cruiser not a racer. We do have a few club activities before we get back into the sailing season. There's the tour of the museum at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. We also have the Membership Meeting and the Brunch coming up soon. If we can’t actually be out on the water (at least most of us – we may have a few hearty souls), we can be thinking about sailing. To that end I’m providing a Pop Quiz on Sail Trim. Some of you may have seen this before; since I copied it from the Mainsheet Magazine a few issues back. Hope to see you soon at either the tour or the membership meeting. POP QUIZ ON SAIL TRIM By Don Guillette Don Guillette is the author of The Sail Trim Users Guide and the Sail Trim Chart. His products are available through the Catalina 30 ships store. He also conducts a sail trim forum at sailboatowners.com. The purpose of this quiz is to test your sail trim knowledge. There are no trick questions. The sail trim controls outlined in the quiz are standard on most mast head rig boats and their function should be understood by every sailboat owner. Here's the situation - you are sailing to windward in 5 to 15 knots of wind in a relatively small choppy seas. What general mainsail and jib settings would you use to obtain optimum performance from your Catalina? Assume you're the skipper issuing sail trim instructions to your crew. You have 2 minutes to issue your instructions. It is important that as skipper that you know WHY a particular sail trim adjustment is necessary. If you do not have a cunningham, just skip that question. MAINSAIL
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Spring Member Meeting March 5th, 4:00 PM Fisherman's Inn |
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Pete Bruzik, Vice Commodore Chart your course for 38 58.2N, 76 14.6W and look for Fisherman's Inn! or use the street address - Fisherman's Inn At Kent Narrows Bridge and Route 50 /301 Grasonville, MD Phone 410-827-8807 Once over the Annapolis Bay bridge, go approximately six miles on Route 50 and take Exit 42 (Kent Narrows). Make a right at the end of the exit ramp, then look for Fisherman's Inn on the left. We will meet at 4 PM for drinks (cash bar) and, for those who want to have dinner, we'll order from a special menu. It's $35 per person - terrific food! Please bring cash or check! I will have cash to make change. There will be a presentation "Rules of the road - Fact and Fallacy! - and other odd nautical facts!" We will also talk about the schedule for 2005 Please send me a note at VCommodore@SailCCYC.org or call (cell 302-545-2149) to let me know if you're coming or if you have any questions. |
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USNA Museum Tour February 26th |
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Al Lohman, Commodore The sky was blue and the temperature a balmy 45 degrees for our Saturday museum tour. At least after the 6 inches of snow two days before, 45 degrees seemed balmy. The temperature was enough to clear the streets and sidewalks of any snow. Mr. Jim Cheevers, the Associate Director of the Naval Academy Museum met the CCYC group in the lobby of Preble Hall and started our tour. Mr. Cheevers gave us a delightful one-hour tour of the museum. He called the tour the Plebe tour, explaining that is was basically the same tour he gives freshman midshipman as part of their historical heritage class. What made the tour particularly entertaining was all of the little stories that Mr. Cheevers provided. He has obviously been involved with the museum for a long time and has a wealth of anecdotes about many of the items on display. If he had not given us the tour, I don’t think I would have heard about the ceremonial sword that was missing from the museum for 73 years. The sword belonged to John Worden, the Captain of the Monitor during the Monitor-Merrimac battle. The sword was very valuable, both historically and because of many special gold inlays. It was originally purchased through Tiffanys. The sword went missing in the 1920s and was recovered by the FBI from a collector in Chicago. The FBI was investigating crooked collectors from “The Antiques Road Show,” and found the sword. It was returned to the museum in the 1990s. Other interesting stories included the fact that the pen that Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz used to sign the treaty with the Japanese that ended WWII was donated to the museum because Nimitz’s daughter was a Dominican nun. As a nun, she couldn’t keep the worldly possession she had inherited. Astronaut Jim Lovell always called the museum before he went into space. A USNA alumnus, Lovell had donated a prayer book he took with him on his first flight. On his subsequent space flights, including Apollo 13, he always asked to have his prayer book returned to him. Margaret Thatcher visited the museum once. After looking at the first two ship models, in the ship model collection, she commented that the second one wasn’t very nice looking. This, of course, left the curator flabbergasted. She went one to explain she only meant it wasn’t as appealing as the first one. If you ever hear that the academy accepts bone donations to support the building of bone ship models, don’t believe it. This was a joke that Mr. Cheevers used to tell to the midshipmen during his tours. He was astounded to hear that some gullible midshipmen have repeated this myth. In particular, he overheard one midshipman tell this story to a group of Russian visitors. Unfortunately after the museum tour, we were unable to get into the Chapel. There was a wedding ceremony, and it was closed to visitors. The crypt of John Paul Jones in the lower level of the chapel was also closed. The crypt is being renovated, and is closed until May 2005. This prompted some of the group to say this just means we have to have a return trip sometime. We’ll see. Those in attendance included: Diane Benyus, Pete and Kath Bruzik, Tom and Pat Swift, Tom and Lyn Gorman, Al Lohman, Dave and Pat Marchant, Wayne and Joan Savage with their 4 grandchildren, Jon and Marlyn Van Tassell, and Dave and Lois Zonderman. |